


Golden Fear

by PatchesIsSorry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Luna Lovegood, Boggarts, Chess, Gen, Hogwarts Second Year, I don't know why the golden trio were so mean to her in canon, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Just actually addressed, Luna deserves better, Luna just does things, No one can stop her, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, The Golden Trio, but not worse than canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25061359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatchesIsSorry/pseuds/PatchesIsSorry
Summary: Luna Lovegood is not good with people, this is a fact. People are not the only beings at Hogwarts, this is also a fact. When Luna makes a friend she finds out something odd about Harry Potter.Why on earth is the Boy Who Lived afraid of cupboards?This needs to be addressed.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter, Luna Lovegood & Ron Weasley
Comments: 18
Kudos: 198





	Golden Fear

**Author's Note:**

> I take no responsibility for this it just happened one day and I couldn't stop. If anyone feels the need to blame someone, blame my beta, he's the worst.  
> (I accidentally uploaded the wrong draft initially, it’s basically the same with some tense housekeeping and like three more paragraphs in the greenhouse.)  
> (Keep blaming my beta.)

Luna Lovegood was not very well liked. She was aware of this, not being as stupid or oblivious as people tended to believe, she just didn’t care.  
There were other things on her mind.  
For instance the moment her mother died, the return of Voldemort, and people still being too close minded to acknowledge the danger that is Wrackspurts.  
Or the Boggart that kept following her around.

Much more interesting than school yard taunts.

It started in the room of requirement she thinks.(It’s always nice to pop in there for crafting supplies.)  
She doesn’t mind it too much, it takes the form of a small nargle (they could take over the world you know) and generally just hides in her hair.

It’s clearly not a real Nargle, her butterbeer cork necklace keeps those away, so there’s nothing to be afraid of and she lets it be.

Very few people ever come close to Luna, the wrackspurts having already gotten to them, and she thinks that’s what draws the Boggart to her. It must be hard having to change yourself to fit other people like that, Luna sees it all the time but it never seems any easier, or makes any more sense.

She writes to her father about it, but he doesn’t reply. Xenophilous can be forgetful about things like that. It doesn’t bother her much, he read it, the next Quibbler had a story about it.

There’s only a slight tinge of worry about whether or not he’s remembering to eat.  
Xenophilous has been forgetful of a lot of things since her mother died.

After a while they get to talking.  
Turns out, it likes being a nargle, and likes Luna too, being more than a little tired of dark and lonely cupboards.

So Loony Lovegood takes to talking to herself, quite frequently, the Boggart makes for good company, with its dry wit and insight into the people around her.

Boggarts have a sort of low level telepathy as far as Luna can figure. (There’s shockingly little research done on Boggarts that aren’t about ways to exterminate them.)

Sometimes it shares what it picks up.  
Snape becomes a lot less terrifying when she finds out he’s petrified of butterflies.

It’s all going very well until she runs into Harry Potter, the boy who lived, on one of the moving staircases and the Boggart tells her what he’s afraid of.

The war orphan, hunted by the darkest wizard of all time, who just recently overcame a manifestation of said darkest wizard of all time is most afraid of being locked in a small dark cupboard.

This, Luna knew, required her attention.

The boggart knew it too, it rather dislikes cupboards itself.

Thus a friendship breeds an alliance and a shared mission.

And Harry Potter is irrevocably marked for the second time in his life, without even knowing about it.

The difficult thing, was the initial approach, there was much discussion between Luna and the boggart on this front.

Between his (and it is a his, it felt disrespectful using ‘it’ after a while so she asked) telepathy, and her journalistic inquisitiveness, they both know this will take some delicacy and research.

Luna may not be very good with humans, but she knows not to just spring questions about peoples greatest fears on them willy nilly.

Xenophilous has the Quibbler to busy him, and this is a private matter anyway, so she doesn’t write to him.

This is her mission, and Frederick’s.

Named with his permission of course, apparently Boggarts don’t spend any time together and so don’t have names. (She’s writing up a report on Boggarts with his input.) It sounds awfully lonely to Luna, but she doesn’t mention it and neither does Frederick even if she knows he heard her think it.

After some investigation, their first step was decided upon.

Neville Longbottom.

He was in Harry’s friend group, without being part of the untouchable trio, and very friendly despite his general pariah status, (Luna and Frederick can relate) so even if his general nervousness makes him somewhat of a flight risk, his politeness would probably carry her through.

Terrified of disappointing people according to Frederick, which only makes him disappoint more people, a textbook self fulfilling prophecy, it’s all quite sad really.

To call him the weakest link would be cruel, but he’s certainly the best bet for integration and information gathering. Professor Flitwick keeps talking about making friends and inter-house unity anyway.

The greenhouses were where he could be found most weekends so that was where Luna and Frederick found themselves the following Saturday.

Armed with her butterbeer cork necklace, wand tucked behind her ear for safekeeping, shoes missing yet again, and paint splattered overalls, she wandered into greenhouse four around ten, nearly giving Neville a heart attack.

Neville sustained no injury, but the flitterweed he was inspecting for signs of disease was dropped unceremoniously.

“Oh dear,” Luna said airily as Neville scrambled excitedly to the destroyed pot, “did I frighten you? Terribly sorry.”

Neville pauses in his fumbling to look up at her in abject horror.

People usually had that reaction to Luna, the nargles having gotten to them of course.

Her father says she has a light tread and must have been a cat in a past life, her peers tell her to stop creeping around and threaten to attach a bell to her.  
There are a lot of nargles.

“I’m sorry-I just-no one’s usually-“

His face turned bright red and he pursed his lips, clearly embarrassed.

Frederick, well he doesn’t say, he never says anything he just leaves Luna with the distinct impression of him having said something.

(She thinks that boggarts telepathy not only helps them identify what to change into, but help feed into peoples general unease at seeing their greatest fear realized.  
Frederick doesn’t do that though.  
Mostly he just complains that her classes are dull.)

Frederick though, communicates in the way he does, and informs her that Neville is quite terrified of her.

This is a new experience for her.

Usually it tends more on the side of disbelief and disgust.

“I’m really sorry I frightened you. My name’s Luna Lovegood, you’re Neville Longbottom right? Professor Sprout is always talking about how wonderful you are.”

Bemoaning that she has to teach anyone but him actually, but that’s close enough and she is trying to put him at ease.

Luna likes herbology as a subject, it’s just that so many creatures are attracted by the plants they work with she tends to get distracted.

“You should be more careful. We wouldn’t want anything unfortunate to happen to you would we?”

Now to Luna this seemed the merest commonplace, nice in an abstract way but mostly said to fill silence when necessary.

To Neville, the airy almost void of emotion tone, accompanied as it was by her still not looking at him in the slightest, and the red stains splattered on her overalls that looked almost like blood and not the dirigible plums she’d been enthusiastically painting on her bed frame, it was the most terrifying thing possible.

To Frederick, this is the funniest thing he’s heard all week.

Neville looks at her, smiling placidly and starting to hum, pales, and faints.

Frederick doesn’t need to translate that her attempt to relax him failed.

Time to get madame Pomfrey.

Madame Pomfrey listened to Luna’s account unblinkingly, sighed, and called for some house elves to fetch him into one of the beds.

“No need to feel bad dear, this is the fourth time he’s fainted this year, I tried to talk to Augusta about doing something about his anxiety but no he must be just like Frank and Frank didn’t have any problems as if I couldn’t tell her a story or two about what he was up to in his school days...”

At the crack of the house elves returning, levitating an unconscious Neville onto a bed Madame Pomfrey seemed to remember that she was talking to an impressionable student and stopped her rant abruptly.

Color rising slightly she busied herself with making sure Neville hadn’t injured himself in the fall, and Luna continued humming, swaying slightly but not to the tune of her music.

It was more to the pleasing not-quite-sounds of Frederick’s displeasure at being able to feel Neville’s dreams and how cliche they were.

Naked and unprepared for class is apparently quite passé in real circles.

He does think Madame Pomfrey’s deep fear of being treated by an incompetent mediwitch and unable to stop it, an interesting notion worthy of some thought though.

At Madame Pomfrey’s inspection she finds that Neville hit his head on the dropped pot as he fell.

While this is easily fixed by a murmured spell, head wounds require twenty four hours of observation as a rule, so tsking mildly, she sends a patronus to Mcgonogall to let her know he’ll be staying overnight.

This done and a monitoring charm placed on Neville, she starts heading back to her office only to be stopped short by Luna, still swaying, still near the opening of the hospital wing, her ever present smile unblemished.

This discovery is met with some non student appropriate swearing that makes her color rise yet again.

“Miss Lovegood is there a reason you’re still here?”

Luna opens her eyes, blinking slightly, Frederick is in her head telling her he dislikes Madame Pomfrey’s tone with her.  
It’s not one she’s not used to, she tends to make people, especially adults, feel wrong footed.

Times like these, she missed her father.  
Not how he is now, but before her mum died.  
At least she has Frederick.

“I wanted to wait until Neville woke up.”

She feels a little responsible.

Plus the hospital wing is empty and it would be nice to have some quiet away from the students and their jeers.

Madame Pomfrey, nods briskly, gestures toward the bed Neville’s in, smooths an imaginary wrinkle on her skirt, and marches into the office.

Luna floats to the bed next to Neville’s in the way only she can do and sits down cross legged on it, contemplating the Rotfang conspiracy and whether muggle dentists could be any help in foiling it.

Frederick firmly disagrees, and he knows a good deal about them from the muggleborn children’s fears, but she thinks it could have some merits.

An hour or two passes pleasantly with this debate and shortly after Madame Pomfrey has vanished the remains of the lunch she had brought for Luna a streak of messy brown hair appears in the hospital wing, followed more slowly by a shock of orange, and a tangle of brunette.

The golden trio had arrived.

Hermione started frantically questioning Madame Pomfrey about Neville, Ron headed straight towards the bed on the other side of Neville and lies down, and Harry walked over to the end of the bed Luna’s on looking at her questioningly.

Things had not gone quite to plan, but Luna was adaptable, and this works as an introduction as well as anything else she supposed.

“Hello, I’m Luna Lovegood.”

With Harry so close Frederick can get a better read on him, and he is not happy with what he finds.  
Luna mainly ignores his angered rumblings in the back of her head, they’ll talk later.  
Instead she pats the spot on the bed next to her and keeps smiling at Harry, who’s shifting foot to foot and rubbing his hand on the back of his neck.

Luna doesn’t buy into the savior stuff the way most people do, but it’s never been more clear to her how young he is than at that moment.

“Er, hi I’m Harry. Are you friends with Neville?”

He seems rather unsure for someone who single handedly (ha) defeated Voldemort last year but that’s probably due to the collection of wrackspurts gathered on his shoulders.

Sitting down next to her tentatively, legs swinging, he looks at her expectantly, Ron lets out a faint snore.

“No, I went to speak to him in the greenhouse and he fainted.”

It was always best to be truthful in Luna’s opinion.

Harry looks rather confused by this, and Hermione just finished with her interrogation, narrows her eyes slightly at her.

Ron continues snoring.

“Why did he do that?”

People ask the most nonsensical questions sometimes.

“Well I suppose you’d have to ask him, he’s the one who did it.”

Hermione blinks, looking nonplussed, but Harry after a moment, starts laughing uproariously.  
Maybe there’s more wrong with his head than the Wrackspurts.

“I suppose you’re right.”

It takes a moment for Luna to realize that a cruel joke isn’t forthcoming, and her shoulders relax slightly earning a mild raised eyebrow from Harry.  
Hermione’s brows are knitted, looking between Harry and Luna like they’re a puzzle to be solved.

“But fainting is a physiological response triggered by stress, lack of air-“

Harry raises a hand commandingly, not turning away from Luna.

“Hermione, we’ve talked about this.”

She slumps slightly and Luna would swear her hair falls with her, and sits down on the end of the bed Ron’s still sleeping in.  
Luna knows the feeling.  
People tend to disregard her research and knowledge.

“Can you tell me more about fainting? Usually I just think it’s the wrackspurts, or alternatively fairies up to some mischief, but you sound like you know more about it than I do.”

There’s a collective odd look at the mention of her creatures, but no one says anything except Hermione who starts animatedly accounting most of her science class the year before last.

Luna smiled and interjected comments about the various hidden creatures likely at work every once in a while, and Hermione gave her more odd looks but smiled even more and Harry just looked with a silent sort of wonder between the two of them.

After this she became sort of friends with them, although Neville still couldn’t talk to her without major damage, (either property or personal) for the first time she had people to talk to.

Hermione liked how she listened and actually payed attention to her rants, and was even known on occasion to listen to Luna’s theories and beliefs and discuss them without a trace of mockery  
Zoology was not something she’d been able to learn much about before and Luna had a remarkable understanding of it, even if it was interspersed with nonsense creatures and odd conspiracies.

Harry was of the opinion that anyone who could get along with the still too isolated Hermione as well as Luna was a friend to him, and he liked her calm presence and complete disinterest in his name and title.

Ron was the only holdout.  
He didn’t have a problem with Luna, but he didn’t understand her and Ron was a strategist at heart, she was an unknown variable, a wild card, and that made him uneasy.

That was Frederick’s assessment anyway.  
It bothered him, but Luna was used to it.  
(Frederick was of the opinion she was used to too many things.)

All in all it was nice to have people say hi to her in the hallways, or wave in the great hall during meals, even if it meant the increase in bullying.

People seemed to think that ‘Loony’ Lovegood was somehow to blame for all their troubles especially after she became friends with the golden trio.

The taunts turned to hexes and the student body seemed to have the unwavering belief that she’d spelled them somehow.

During one such unpleasant interview in a mostly unused hallway near the library Ron Weasley came across them.

“Oi! What are you doing?”

At the sight of him, the offending Ravenclaws vanished with remarkable speed.

“Hello Ronald, is there anything I can do for you?”

It seemed the polite thing to say.

Instead of answering her question, or complimenting her on her politeness and beautiful dirigible plum earrings, he looked rather flabbergasted though.

After a minute of opening and closing his mouth fruitlessly, he sighs heavily, rubs a hand over his face and altogether looks far too old for a boy of only twelve years.

“Do you want to play chess?”

Luna nods happily despite Frederick’s grumblings and starts skipping after Ron who’s muttering something about what he ever did to always get stuck with the ones with no self preservation.

Soon enough they reach the Gryffindor common room and Ron gives the password, rolling his eyes as the fat lady whinges about letting Luna in.

He collected his chessboard and sat in what seemed like his usual spot by the fire.

It’s not Wizards chess, just an ordinary muggle set.  
Luna doesn’t question it.  
It’s rude to question your host and if everything that’s said about last year is to be believed, he has good reason for disliking the violent enchanted figures.

Instead she tells Frederick not to tell her anything that could be cheating, and sits crosslegged in the ornate arm chair across from Ron.

“Who were you just talking to?”

Ron makes the first move.

“Frederick, he likes to be helpful but I wanted to make sure he didn’t do anything that could be considered cheating, he’s still learning about everything you know.”

Luna is aware she’s being vague, she’s aware of a lot of things.  
Her move makes Ron’s brow crease ever so slightly.

“Who’s Frederick?”

The key about Luna is actually quite simple.

“He’e a friend of mine.”

There is a difference between ignorance and indifference, Luna is that difference.

“Were those people in the hall your friends too?”

Many people think Ron is stupid, but Luna knows not to judge a book by its cover.  
This just proves it.  
Ron takes Luna’s bishop, she doesn’t react at all, his brow creases more.

“No, they quite dislike me. Wrackspurts I think, there’s quite an infestation in Hogwarts you know.”

Luna takes Ron’s rook, still no reaction, she’s not even really looking at the board, rather staring at an unremarkable spot near Ron’s left shoulder.

“Does that kind of thing happen a lot?”

Frederick likes Ron.  
Spiders as a rule are rather cliche, but he says he has a remarkably well ordered mind, despite all appearances.

“Yes.”

Ron took her pawn and looked fleetingly behind him to see if there was anything interesting near his shoulder.

There isn’t.

“Have you told anybody?”

He knows that the faculty oversight on these kinds of things, or really anything, is laughable, but there is a routine to these things.

Certain questions must be asked and answered.

“It’s the wrackspurts that are the problem, and due to the Rotfang conspiracy sadly the wizarding world doesn’t believe in them.”

A muggle therapist would call it a defense mechanism.

She believes in these things, but she’s well aware others don’t, so if things get too uncomfortable she starts talking about her beliefs until someone leaves or changes the subject.

“Right.”

It’s quite effective.  
He takes her queen, she doesn’t blink.

“Why were you in the greenhouse that day, with Neville? He spends all his time there and he hasn’t seen you there before or since.”

Quite clever.  
Luna’s vague smile increased infinitesimally and her eyes look just a hint less hazy.

“I wanted to talk to him.”

This makes Ron’s now quite avid inspection of the board pause and he looks up at her quickly, eyes searching for something in her face.

Frederick finds all this very amusing.

“Why did you want to talk to him?”

Luna likes Ron, even his uneasiness towards her.

Most people discount her out of hand as crazy, or even just as a child.

Even her own father doesn’t pay much attention to her anymore, he hasn’t payed attention to much since her mother died.

Ron is one of the few people who regards her as an actual player in whatever games he sees.

And games he does see, it’s how his head works, in seeing patterns and translating it all into games, making them fit in a way that makes sense to him.

It’s quite fascinating as Frederick tells it.

“I wanted to ask him about Harry.”

Chess game entirely forgotten for the moment, Ron looked at her with a hard gleam in his eyes.

“And why would you want to do that?”

Luna looks him full in the eyes for probably the first time since they’ve met.

Her eyes still have a dreamy quality, but there’s a steel in the back he’s never seen before.

“I wanted to find out why Harry was afraid of starving to death in a cupboard.”

His face paled palpably, Frederick is cackling in her head.

“Why would you say something like that?”

Good at strategy Ron is.  
Good at poker Ron is not.

“Frederick told me. It seemed odd and I knew I couldn’t just rush up to someone as notable as Harry and ask him about his greatest fear and have it be taken well, so I wanted to ask Neville if he knew anything.”

Now Luna is staring at an uninteresting place near Ron’s right shoulder.

He starts worrying his lip between his teeth and looks purposefully back to the chess board.

Luna’s strategy eludes him.

“Who is this Frederick person again?”

Luna takes his bishop.

For the life of him he can’t figure out the logic behind her moves.

“He’s a boggart, he was lonely and now he just hides in my hair. They’re quite fascinating creatures boggarts, I’m writing a paper.”

Ron seems uninterested in her paper.  
She should tell Hermione, she’d like it.

“A boggart? Aren’t they evil?”

It seems the Weasley’s haven’t been reading the Quibbler subscription Xenophilous gave them for their wedding anniversary.

A shame really.

Maybe Arthur’s part of the Rotfang conspiracy.

That would be rather unfortunate.

“No creature is innately evil.”

Except maybe dementors but little research has been done on them so who knows really.

Ron takes her knight.  
It had gotten perilously close to his king and he’s really not sure how he let that happen.

“But still, you’re friends with a boggart, and it told you Harry’s deepest fear, and you decided to ask Neville about it?”

Why do people sound so doubtful about the most reasonably things?  
It all makes sense if you think about it.

“Exactly.”

Luna’s pawn takes Ron’s knight.  
He’s quite concentrated on the game now, in a way he isn’t usually.  
Without being arrogant he is the best chess player at Hogwarts.

“Why?”

He asks that a lot.  
They all ask that a lot when Luna’s around.  
Her bishop moves directly in front of one of his rooks.

He can’t fathom why.

“It didn’t make sense to to me, and Frederick and I were worried.”

The more specific a fear, the more experience someone has with that fear.

Frederick has a whole thing.

If Harry were just afraid of the dark, that’s normal, Ron’s fear of spiders also normal, the kind of things in storybooks, children are afraid of the things you tell them to be afraid of.

But he’s not afraid of the dark, or enclosed spaces, or even the megalomaniac that is actively out to get him, he’s afraid of starving to death in a particular cupboard, under a particular set of stairs.

That, is a real fear.

Not the abstract fear of unknown monsters.

The real visceral fear of someone who knows it can happen.

She moves another pawn without looking at the board and Ron is forced into the stunned realization that she’s a move away from checkmate and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Playing chess with Luna is unsettling in a way that she seems to specialize in.

It’s not that she’s good at it, anyone can see she isn’t.  
But there’s no way to plot her actions.  
No way to make sense of her strategy.

It’s almost like she plays without caring about the other player at all.

Just moving pieces across the board at random.

“You’re worried about Harry?”

Her father used to say her heart’s too big for people to understand.  
Luna’s never been sure what to make of that.  
Her father was like that, and when her mother died it broke, and he broke with it.

She doesn’t want to be like that.

But lots of people need help, lots of things need help.  
She doesn’t want to be like that, but she’s not sure if she has any choice in the matter.

“Of course.”

Ron takes one of her pawns, even if he knows it’s futile.

It’s a shame too, he was so close to winning.  
But she doesn’t move the pawn into position.  
She moves her rook.  
To the middle of the board.  
There is no possible reason he can think of for why she would make that move.

She could have won.

He makes his winning move in stunned silence, and despite never looking at the board, Luna seems to innately know the game is over.  
She picks herself up and not so much walks as floats away.   
Before Ron even knows what’s happening she’s gone.

This interview did not go as planned.  
He’s even less sure what to make of her now.  
Usually playing chess with people helps.

Now he’s not even sure what game he’s playing.

He’s not sure he knows the rules to this one.

Harry runs into her sitting under a tree near a mostly unused path by the lake, serenely painting something onto the bark.

He’d been trying to escape the whispers people think he can’t hear about him being the heir of Slytherin, and Hermione suggested a walk to clear his head.

He has doubts about it actually helping anything, but if it makes Hermione happy he’ll do a lot more than take a walk around the lake on a nice day.

Pausing to study her back for a second as she carefully paints what looks like a centaur birthday party, hats and cake included, he nearly jumps out of his skin when she speaks without turning to face him at all.

“Hello Harry. It’s a lovely day isn’t it? I saw some thestrels by the forbidden forest if you wanted to take a look.”

Idly she wonders whether he can see them, and if he can how that is.

Likely at least one of his parents died in front of him, it’s common sense not to leave a baby alone even without evil wizards, but he can’t remember that and that may affect its validity.  
Quirrel died in front of him, but wasn’t he technically dead or something?  
That part of the story gets a little fuzzy.

Maybe animal deaths count.  
Has anyone checked this?

If the ministry wasn’t hopelessly corrupt she would petition them for more magical creature research.

Harry who has taken this time to get over her casual mention of being able to see thestrels.  
(He does pay attention in class sometimes Hermione.)

“Hi Luna, yes it is a lovely day.”

He walks forward carefully and sits next to the tree trunk so he can see Luna’s face as she works.  
Her face is covered with different streaks of pastel paint, but he doesn’t mention it.  
He has a feeling Luna doesn’t mind.

There’s a movement in her hair, but it’s gone so fast he’s not sure what to think of it.

Luna’s humming something he’s pretty sure he recognizes as being a muggle cat food commercial jingle.

She seems like the same old Luna.

He didn’t expect her to scream at him or something, but nearly everyone has been at least a little stiff since the business on halloween.

After a few long minutes of quasi silence and uncomfortable shifting he can’t take it anymore.

“Aren’t you worried I’m the heir of Slytherin or something?”

It hadn’t really occurred to her to be worried about that.  
But he makes a point.

“Are you?”

She’s prefers to be direct, it’s less confusing, and she’s always been good about telling when people are lying.

“No.”

That’s about what she expected.  
She’s also a good judge of character.

“Then I’m not.”

He pauses for a long time, and Luna does a rare thing and actually looks at him.

His face is frozen in a way it often gets around Luna.

Frederick says his head closely resembles a record scratch more than is reasonable for one person.

Then he starts laughing somewhat manically and Luna goes so far as to stop painting.

At seeing her mildly concerned look Harry gets a hold of himself, only a few remnant giggles slipping through.

“You always make the most sense Luna.”

He’s rewarded with a beatific smile.  
Usually people don’t understand Luna’s type of sense.  
It’s nice, to have someone who understands.

Her mother used to, but since then it’s been rather lonely.  
She thinks Harry might have been lonely too.

“Harry?”

He hums in acknowledgement, feeling far more relaxed than he has been since this whole thing started.

“Why are you afraid of being locked in a cupboard?”

His entire body stiffens.  
She keeps her eyes on her painting, he deserves at least the illusion of privacy she thinks.

Frederick is squawking like a mother hen about tact and delicacy in her head.  
But she doesn’t pay it any mind.

Luna is truthful as a rule, lying only encourages the Wrackspurts.

Luna’s also not as open and filterless as people believe.  
Her filter is just different than other peoples.  
She was going to bring it up eventually, she was just waiting for the right time.

Somehow, despite Frederick’s grumblings, she knew that this was the right time.

Her father taught her to trust her instincts always.

He considers, asking her how she knows that, or why she would ask.  
Why she didn’t just tell her father and plaster it all over the Quibbler, or even sell it to the daily prophet.

But it’s Luna.

He has no idea as to the answers to those questions, but he knows Luna.  
Even if it’s only been a short time since they met.

Luna is Luna.

She listens to Hermione and her rants, played chess with Ron although he’s been cagey about the details of that, and last week presented all three of them with butterbeer cork necklaces to hold off Nargles.

“Because it’s happened before.”

Luna is a calm person.  
That’s what people say.  
It’s even true.

She doesn’t view the world rashly, never rises to peoples taunts and baits, and is a blessing in a crisis.

At the moment, her calm nature is being tested.

As far as Luna is concerned everyone deserves to be treated equally, every person, every creature, ever conjured chocolate frog.  
(She and Hermione are working on a plan for the liberation of that last one.)  
And Harry is one of the kindest people she’s ever met.

He dislikes his fame, yet still humors people like Colin Creevey because he doesn’t want to be mean, he’s never laughed at her because of her beliefs, or her outfits, only complimented her polka dots and asked her to detail the rotfang conspiracy for him since he doesn’t have a quibbler subscription, and he doesn’t take bullying of any kind lightly, whether it’s directed at him or not.

Luna is a calm person, and Harry is a kind person.  
One who sounds far too defeated for someone his age.

She doesn’t need Frederick’s murderous rumblings in her head, she has her own already.

“These would be your muggle relatives then?”

He looks surprised which she would take offense about but she knows it’s not about her.

It’s quite easy to figure out really.

The mismatched and too large for him clothes he wears during the weekend, his protectiveness over food, how he stays at school over break and never seems to have anyone to write to, or to write to him, and of course the most obvious signal, the timeline.

There simply aren’t any other people who could be responsible, he’s only been alive twelve years.

He nods dumbly and she hums agreeably.  
A plan must be made.  
Her first instinct is to ask her father.  
But Xenophilous well...he’s the type you ask for help after you’ve made a plan, not for help to make a plan.

This doesn’t seem like the type of thing Harry wants spread about anyway.  
She takes a minute, but Occam’s razor is known for a reason.

It might take a smidgen of blackmail, and definitely will involve doing a little misleading, but it’s for the greater good.

“Would you like to not have to stay with them anymore?”

No one’s ever asked him that before.

Dumbledore’s insisted it’s necessary he stay, Ron and Hermione have sympathized, Mrs Weasley has clucked about how they don’t feed him enough and everyone else has blindly assumed his home life is fine.

But this little first year, who weighs about ninety pounds soaking wet, and has known him for so short a time asks it so calmly and he has the feeling that if he says yes she could make sure it happened.

“Yes.”

He’s never lied to Luna, it feels like it would be wrong in a way he’s not used to.  
Not a transgression, or a necessary evil, but a crime.

Luna is otherworldly, and he thinks her world is probably better.

She smiles widely and wipes her paint covered hands onto her overalls, standing up and offering him a still paint covered hand.

“Do you trust me?”

It takes him barely a moment to take her hand.

“Yes.”

Not trusting Luna is unthinkable.  
Harry looks back at the painting on the bark as Luna starts leading him away.  
It’s beautiful.  
He thinks he might understand art now.

It takes a while for him to realize where they’re going, Luna takes an odd route through the castle and takes him down several hallways he’s certain he’s never been down.

But soon enough they’re in front of the eagle marking the headmaster’s office.  
If it were anyone else he would ask how they knew where the entrance was.  
But Luna is ineffable.

And now she’s talking to the statue.

“Could you please let the Headmaster know that I need to speak to him urgently?”

She’s still covered in paint, wearing overalls, shoeless, wearing a violently pink shirt with yellow polka dots, and she seems to have a spoon among other things in her hair.

Her tone is perfectly calm, measured, respectful, and polite.

But her presence is commanding in an utterly Luna and completely unquantifiable way.

If she were anyone else, he thinks he would be afraid, but he’s not.

And he’s not even surprised when after a minute the eagle starts turning to admit them.

Luna tugs him up the stairs and they walk into his cluttered office to see Dumbledore, dressed in his usual mix of rich fabrics and voluminous robes, looking almost surprised behind his desk, a beautiful bird by his side.

“Hello Headmaster Dumbledore. Harry is going to be staying with my father and I from this time forward.”

Harry barely controls his impulse to gape and it looks like Dumbledore might be feeling the same.  
He has never seen someone so calmly demand something before.  
Especially not from Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Mugwump, and former master of death.

Dumbledore it seemed, was not accustomed to this either.

“And why my dear child would that be?”

Yet again her ever present patience was tested.  
Dumbledore she believed was a good man.  
But good men can make mistakes.

Because of the nature of what he does his mistakes tend to be larger.

And this one effected her friend.  
All of that combined with his condescending tone, one of disbelief she knew all too well made her want to scream.

She wanted to scream, cry, and generally throw a hysterical fit about all of this.  
That was not what was required however.  
So she merely dropped the smile.

To Harry who had never seen her without some wattage of the smile present it felt a lot like seeing storm clouds block out the sun.  
He was honestly a little afraid for Dumbledore.

“Because the muggles have not been treating him kindly, whatever reasons you may have for keeping him with them I don’t care about. He will be staying with my father and I from here on out or I will make sure my father stirs up trouble for you in the Quibbler. I’m aware the readership of it is sadly underwhelming, but I’ll remind you that some of the people who do read it also write for the daily prophet and if they smell a hint of scandal they will drag you through the mud with great pleasure.”

This was the blackmail and misleading.

Of course it’s true the prophet scours even the Quibbler for story ideas, and it’s true that they would find or make up whatever horrid things they wanted to if given half the chance, and it’s even true that her father would write about this if she asked him to.

It’s not true however that she would ask that of him.  
She couldn’t do that to Harry.

But Dumbledore doesn’t know her very well, she’s just another first year, and she doesn’t look people in the eyes unless she feels that they deserve it.

Dumbledore does not.

It’s a gamble, but it’s one she thinks will work, her lie does have the benefit of being close to the truth and she is genuine about most of her feelings on this, and she doesn’t think Dumbledore genuinely wishes Harry harm, even if he needs a push to let her save him from a bad situation.

Nonetheless, she squeezes Harry’s hand rather hard as she waits.

There’s a long moment, before Dumbledore says anything, where Harry would swear the earth stood still.

Neither he nor Luna breathed, and the bird, seeming to sense the gravity of the situation remained still as well, no feather cleaning, no chirping, no flying, no nothing.

Just Luna’s hand squeezing his tightly, and the clearest look he’s ever seen her have.

Her eyes look like chips of flint and his only thought is of sheer gratitude that they’re not directed at him.

Then Dumbledore heaves a great sigh and time starts again.

“Are you truly that unhappy at the Dursley’s Harry?”

Harry nods again.

He feels a bit like the bird bath Aunt Petunia had for a while before Dudley broke it.

On the edge of it was a little bobbing bird, dipping its beak in and out of the water endlessly.

“Then I suppose I can make arrangements for you to stay with the Lovegoods. It would be safer for you with the blood wards at the Dursley’s, but I’m not sure anywhere’s safe anymore and the Lovegoods are good people.”

Luna smiles triumphantly, clicks her barefoot heels together, and walks out again.

It’s probably best she get to the owlery to send her father a letter about all this before Dumbledore does.

He’ll like it she’s sure, but she’s also sure hearing it from Dumbledore would be rather disorienting.

Harry feels like he’s in sort of a daze.

He’s not quite sure how that happened.

He was there for all of it, he heard everything, he was paying attention, but he still feels like he’s missing something fundamental.

They’re halfway to the owlery when he stops Luna with a gentle tug in the middle of a hallway, whoops loudly a few times, smiles brightly and hugs Luna firmly.

He gets paint all over his nicest weekend shirt.

But he has other things to think about.


End file.
